I haven’t blogged in while. I’ve been busy taking care of myself, enjoying my family and embracing the new me. I’m happy to declare that I’m back and feeling pretty awesome.
I’ve briefly blogged about my journey with postpardum depression. I thought I was getting better. I had some good days mixed with bad days. I was waiting for the cloudiness to go away. But the days were consistently dark and the good days were few and far between. I started to feel like I was operating on auto pilot.
I wasn’t having fun being a mom. Those other moms I heard and read about – the one’s who LOVE being a mom – I thought they were an urban legend….or Stepford Wives. I really didn’t get why they liked being a mom. I was starting to despise it.
And I couldn’t shake the thoughts – that I now know are signs of PPD…..Thoughts that I wanted my old life back. That I wanted to rewind my decision to have a child. That I had made a mistake. I pined for my pre-baby life.
I was spinning deeper and deeper into a very dark hole. I never laughed at my husband’s jokes anymore. I was always picking fights with him. I felt like everyone was criticizing me and constantly on the offensive. It didn’t take much to set me off. And if something didn’t go as planned, I felt like was going to “lose my shit.”
I was also having intrusive thoughts that wouldn’t go away. They were almost always about something bad happening to Elizabeth. I would envision terrible things happening to her – but it wasn’t me that was doing those bad things (as some women with PPD talk about) – it always by someone else. Some of the thoughts were violent and so disturbing, and very hard to shake.
One day I was changing her diaper, and this vision popped in my head: I envisioned someone walking into her room, throwing a hatchet at her, and it hit her in the head. I would envision someone throwing her over the railing when I was at the mall. And each time I would get an intrusive thought, I would think “WTF is wrong with me?!” (Intrusive thoughts are one of the symptoms of Post Pardum OCD).
I knew it was time to do something about my head when I wasn’t able to relax during a mountain bike ride. All I could think about while riding, was something bad happening to Elizabeth while I was away from her. Intrusive thoughts creeped into my head. I envisioned her falling out of her high chair and falling off of the changing table. The thoughts went so far as I imagined planning her funeral.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t push the thoughts away. Once I finished my ride and got back to the car, I was in tears. I realized I was having an anxiety attack the entire time I was on the trail. And that’s when I knew I needed to do something. The trail is supposed to be my happy place. A slice of solace. Exercise is supposed to help me decompress so that I can come back home and be a good mom.
Later that week, I met with my therapist. After sharing the extreme turn of PPD over the past few weeks and admitting that I’d been in denial about the state of my PPD, we came to the agreement that it was time to seek out help from Big Pharma.
I made a call to my midwife and discussed my symptoms in detail. She set up an emergency medical evaluation for the next morning. I still didn’t want to take meds, but I wanted to get better. It had been nine months that the PPD had taken a strong hold on me.
I thought I was less of person if I had to take meds. I thought I was a failure as a wife and a mother. I was afraid that each time I took one of those pills, it would be an admission of failure. Of weakness. And shame.
My husband and Elizabeth came with me to the session. The mood while preparing for the visit and on the way to the clinic was surprisingly upbeat.
“This is the most light-hearted I’ve seen you in months.” I said to Justin. “What’s up?”
“I feel relieved that you’re getting help.” He said.
After meeting with a psychiatrist for an hour and a half and discussing my symptoms in detail, I left with a prescription for an Selective serotonin reputake inhibitor (SSRI). I also left with a new found hope.
Although I was still apprehensive about taking meds, I was excited to pick up my prescription.
I sat in the car, opened the bottle and peered at the tiny green pills. “Is a little itsy pill really going to help me feel better?” I thought. I shook a pill onto my palm and studied it. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. “Well, here it goes. I’m ready to jump down the rabbit hole,” I said to myself as I popped a pill into my mouth.
It might have been a placebo affect, but I began to feel a little bit better within a couple of hours. By the next evening, I was feeling pretty terrific. I found myself smiling more, feeling at ease, relaxed, comfortable. The dark cloud in my head was fading away.
“Why didn’t I do this earlier?!” I exclaimed to my husband. When I started to cracks jokes back and forth with him and our old-time comedy act began to emerge (you’d have to see us in action to understand), I could tell that he was feeling like he got his wife and best friend back.
Two weeks later, I called my mom to tell her about my day. I was super excited and having an amazing Saturday. I had finished the laundry, meal planned, grocery shopped, went on a one hour bike ride, and took a marathon shower (I washed my hair AND shaved my legs). All before three o’clock. “It sounds like I have my old Janet back!” she exclaimed.
Now that I’m about two months into taking the SSRI, I’ve realized just how bad my PPD was.
I wasn’t going to share the intensity of my PPD with anyone outside my family and close friends. I didn’t want to tell anyone that I was taking meds. And I surely wasn’t going to update my social network status to read “Hey everyone! I’m really depressed and my life really sucks right now!”
But as I’ve thought about it, I feel that I do need to share the entire nasty struggle with PPD….in hopes that other women battling PPD or depression will seek help, and that it’s OK to go the medication route. Approximately 10-15% of women suffer from PPD. I feel that the number is much higher than that. The current statistics only reflect what is reported. Too many women dealing with PPD suffer in silence.
PPD and depression are a stigma, and not something we freely talk about. I hope that sharing my story will help moms – who are going through the same thing - get help.
I’m finally REALLY having fun being a mom. I love my daughter so much more (I liked her, but I didn’t love, love, love her). I’m laughing at my husband’s jokes and amused at his goofy wit again.
The dynamic between Justin, Elizabeth and me has changed – I finally truly feel like we’re a family.
And I finally feel like someone turned the lights on.
Here’s the link to a blog, which I feel is the best PPD blog out there. It’s Postpartum Progress, written by PPD Survivor, Katherine Stone.
Make your life healthy,
Janet




